On July 28 the Cherokee Tribune published Roger Hines’ weekly column titled “Shared Poverty.” Hines, in this column, condensed into 750 words one of the best essays on socialism I have ever read.

In addition, it provides for the average American, in my opinion, the best description of how capitalism came to America as the engine of prosperity and wealth the world has ever known. Capitalism, not socialism, has provided every human being an equal opportunity to gain and preserve both their freedom and wealth.

Hines also takes to task America’s higher education system and how it rejects capitalism in favor of socialism, thus fanning the flames that always lead to corruption and the eventual self-destruction of those nations that reject capitalism to adopt socialism, another softer word for communism.

Hines mentioned that Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” was published in 1776, about three months before Thomas Jefferson created America’s Declaration of Independence. Was that a coincidence or was it a divine message to the Founders who created America’s economic engine?

Another coincidence: Edward Gibbons published his Rise and Decline of the Roman Empire in 1787 — the year the Founders created America’s Tree of Liberty, the Constitution.

I don’t believe either of these great books were coincidences. Both were published with divine guidance, the first to establish America on one of God’s great natural laws — the law of economic competition, the right of individuals to create for themselves, with minimum government interference, through study and hard work, the life best suited for them.

America’s role: to be the example of freedom to the world’s enslaved. I firmly believe both of these books, Smith’s “Wealth of Nations,” and Gibbons’ “Rise and Decline” were inspired by Jefferson’s creator; Gibbons’ book written as a warning to America of what will happen if America followed in the footsteps of ancient Romans, which it is now doing.

As I read Hines’ column, Detroit came to mind. Detroit was in the early 1900s the world’s premier example of how capitalism had brought prosperity to the masses that were willing to work.

In July 2013, Detroit filed for bankruptcy, $18 billion in debt with only $1 billion in assets – an example of how socialism destroys from within. I once worked in those factories that turned out automobiles by the millions and war materials during both world wars. Detroit played a major role in helping defeat the Axis powers during both of these wars and in preserving freedom and liberty for the world’s enslaved.

The only thing Hines did not mention in his classic column was that socialism is not only an equal divider of poverty, but that it kills. He mentioned how Russia, the epitome of socialism/communism during the last century, failed to feed its people but forgot to mention that socialism also kills.

Stalin, to gain “total” control of Russia, killed off all of the intellectuals and capitalists; over 30 million were killed with additional millions sent to Siberia to die in concentration camps.

Hines did not mention China, but beginning about 1950 Mao began his brutal and destructive war against China’s capitalistic state. Over the next few decades, Mao murdered 50 million Chinese. Is socialism what Americans wants? I don’t think so.

When I worked on the assembly lines in Detroit’s auto shops, for a dollar an hour, it was my introduction to my adult world of work. Detroit was a magnet for the unemployed or underemployed boys and men from throughout the Midwest and Ontario, Canada.

My family’s farm was 120 miles north of Detroit and I and dozens of neighbor boys would find work in the Detroit plants, providing us with dollars not available locally.

In addition millions were spent by startup companies in building support shops throughout the Michigan area where local farmers could find work to support their farming operations, as did I in 1954 after returning from serving in the Korean War.

As the family historian I have researched my family from throughout Ontario and have traced their migrations to Michigan where they found jobs in Detroit’s auto plants.

That Detroit is now gone with all its glitter and wealth. Only Detroit’s skeleton remains, destroyed by its leaders ignoring “the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God. Socialism truly is Poverty Equally Divided.

Hines’ classic column should be required reading for every graduating student in America, then tested on the principles of the economic freedoms Hines spelled out so clearly in his column.

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